Cinema of Romania

Cinema of Romania
No. of screens449 (2020)[1]
 • Per capita2.2 per 100,000 (2017)[2]
Main distributorsMedia Pro 30.6%
Roimage 2000 27.3%
Intercomfilm 13.9%[3]
Produced feature films (2017)[4]
Fictional17 (60.7%)
Documentary11 (39.3%)
Number of admissions (2019)[7]
Total13,129,951[5]
 • Per capita0.67
National films801,920 (6.10%)[6]
Gross box office (2019)[8]
Total261 million RON[8] (58 million USD)
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The cinema of Romania is the art of motion-picture making within the nation of Romania or by Romanian filmmakers abroad. The history of cinema in Romania dates back to the late 19th century, as early as the history of film itself. With the first set of films screened on May 27, 1896, in the building of L'Indépendance Roumanie newspaper in Bucharest. In the Romanian exhibition, a team of Lumière brothers' employees screened several films, including the famous L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat.[9] The next year, in 1897, the French cameraman Paul Menu (an employee of the Lumière brothers) shot the first film set in Romania, The Royal parade on May 10, 1897.[9] The first Romanian filmmaker was doctor Gheorghe Marinescu. He created a series of medically themed short films for the first time in history between 1898 and 1899.[10]

The cinema of Romania has been home to many internationally acclaimed films and directors. The first internationally awarded Romanian movie was the 1938 documentary Țara Moților (about Moților Land in the Apuseni Mountains, Romania) directed by Paul Călinescu which received a prize at the 1939 7th Venice International Film Festival.[11][12] The first Romanian film that won an award from the Cannes Film Festival was the 1957 animated short film "Scurtă istorie" (A Short History) directed by Ion Popescu-Gopo. The film won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.[13] The first live-action Romanian film that won an award from the Cannes Film Festival was the 1965 film Forest of the Hanged. The film's director, Liviu Ciulei won the award for Best Director at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival.[14][15]

Romanian cinema achieved wide international recognition in the 2000s with the Romanian New Wave movement that often incorporated a genre of realist and minimalist films that won many awards at European film festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival.

  1. ^ "Cinema screens in Romania 2020". Statista. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  2. ^ "Table 8: Cinema Infrastructure - Capacity". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  3. ^ "Table 6: Share of Top 3 distributors (Excel)". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  4. ^ "Table 1: Feature Film Production - Genre/Method of Shooting". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  5. ^ "Cinema admissions in Romania 2020". Statista. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  6. ^ "Romania: cinema admissions for national film productions 2020". Statista. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  7. ^ "Number of cinema admissions for national film productions in Romania from 2016 to 2020". Retrieved 1 August 2023.
  8. ^ a b "Box office revenue Romania 2019". Statista. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  9. ^ a b Chirammal, Balachandran (23 January 2022). "Romanian Spring in World Cinema: A Spotlight on Romanian Cinema". Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  10. ^ Mircea Dumitrescu, O privire critică asupra filmului românesc, Brașov, 2005, ISBN 973-9153-93-3
  11. ^ "ȚARA MOȚILOR". Retrieved 8 August 2023 – via mubi.com.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference ANF1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ "SCURTA ISTORIE (A Short History)". Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  14. ^ "PADUREA SPINZURATILOR (Forest of the Hanged)". Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  15. ^ "Forest of the Hanged". Film Society of Lincoln Center. Retrieved 26 August 2013.